EMDR Therapists: “Get Curious Not Cautious”
Guest Blog Post by Dr. Annabel McGoldrick
How can getting curious about our own parts help an EMDR therapist to avoid being too cautious?
Note from the author: Treating three new clients who described having been ‘harmed’ by EMDR left me curious about what’s missing in EMDR training. The more I understand about parts and ego states and become informed by the insights of Internal Family Systems therapy, the more I realize that’s just a part of me–a therapist part, a worried part, a perfectionist part, an impatient part perhaps, that’s getting in the way of EMDR therapy. What if there is an EMDR interweave where I notice–tune into, or get curious about – my parts? Using them as guides and allies to collaborate with my clients to explore and heal their inner worlds. After all, there’s more to EMDR than just finding a target.
Three new clients have come to me recently, describing having been ‘harmed’ by EMDR. One was traumatized by the lengthy, detailed history taking that left her spinning in a dissociative episode resembling a nervous breakdown, turning to food and alcohol for stabilization. Two others freaked out when the Bilateral Stimulation (BLS) was started in the first session–never returning to complete their treatment. What is going on here? How are we training EMDR therapists? I know the concept of safety is drilled into trainees in basic training. I meet many naïve supervisees who are too afraid to use EMDR in case they do harm. I’ve talked before about the staggeringly low numbers of those who become EMDR practitioners – only 10%–12% of trainees complete EMDR basic training in the United Kingdom and Ireland as described by Farrell & Keenan in 2013 (Farrell & Keenan, 2013). This experience is echoed by UK Consultant Nicola Dyson in her article “Encouraging practicing EMDR post-training” (2024). Surely, there must be a middle way here.
So perhaps rather than being too cautious, how about getting curious – radically curious about what’s going on here? Now, at this point, we could set out on a tour through philosophy, critical theory, and even neuroscience to decide whether it’s possible or even desirable to engage with the world as it ‘really’ is (if that sounds appealing, you could start with this: Is Reality Real). However, for present purposes, how about using parts, or ego states as our guide?
‘Parts’ is a term familiar from Internal Family Systems Therapy. Parts are seen – within clients – as key potential allies in enabling resilience and healing. EMDR therapy omits the concepts of multiplicity and parts. In my view, this ignores the relational dimension of the therapeutic process. IFS, on the other hand, with its focus on parts, welcomes all the information that can be triggered inside both the client and the therapist. This implies a benefit in combining EMDR’s approach with that of IFS. Crucially, applying the concept of the part to the EMDR therapist’s responses enables what was once perceived as barriers, blocks, and avoidance to be seen as helpful, useful, valuable information to build a connection with a client, thus making EMDR safer.
To me, this is about knowing our parts as well as our clients’ parts. However, EMDR is taught as a procedure, a protocol, with numbers, cognitions, and eight complicated phases for a therapist to go through. This leaves many new therapists feeling they’re getting it wrong; they can’t remember it all without following the page.
So, what’s the helpful advice you can take away from this article and put into practice today?
First permit your parts to get it wrong, I often say to my clients ‘my greatest mistake can be your greatest breakthrough’. Why? Because clients who perceive their therapist as perfect can get scared, they’re doing EMDR wrong. So a therapist who’s comfortable making mistakes, a therapist who’s befriended their inner critic, makes it safe to welcome all parts of the client, messy, muddled, and confused as they may be – in fact, they’re all just sacred inner beings, as Richard Schwartz tells us (Schwartz, 2021). I let the client know that I’ve been on a training course and am learning a new protocol. I might ask: ‘Is it OK to look at a piece of paper now and again? And if that bothers you, let me know – if any parts of you feel ignored, dismissed, or not seen, we can welcome and get to know them.’
Second, perhaps while taking notes, you could try jotting down what part of you has popped into the therapy room. Let’s say you’re in Phase Two: Client Preparation and Insecure parts. Worried parts. Doubting parts. Perfectionist parts. Approval seeking parts. Caretaking parts make themselves known. These are just some EMDR therapists’ parts that can take over during phase two. One man had 24 sessions of EMDR therapy and never reached phase four processing because he was a big talker. Was that because his therapist was blended with an approval-seeking or caretaking part, who could not challenge this client’s talking part to progress through the EMDR phases? Or was it a perfectionist part, thinking they had not yet done enough grounding and preparation? We’ll never know because he stopped EMDR, believing it didn’t work as a therapy.
What if you just wrote down your therapist parts as they appear? Even an angry, bored, or impatient part, I will write them on my pad. Then I can get curious, asking: ‘What do you want me to know about this client?’ Maybe the part wants me to notice that the client’s storytelling part has taken over, and that’s why I’m bored, or perhaps the client is avoiding it; they’re in a protector part. ‘Thank you’, I can say to my part. Just like people, parts want to be loved, noticed and appreciated. So once my EMDR therapists’ parts are heard, they can relax back and let me gently–courageously, confidently, compassionately, and clearly–challenge the client with calmness, connection, and curiosity. (IFS aficionados will notice these are qualities of Self–the essence of all of us that is never damaged by trauma–the very healing energy within the client that fuels the Adaptive Information Processing model in EMDR).
What if we call this an EMDR ‘silent interweave’ (thanks Claire van den Bosch) where we notice–tune into our parts? Jot down what they’re saying, what they want us to know about the client, and about us. I often then journal with my parts after a session, and if work with a client continues to feel stuck, there’s always IFS-informed EMDR supervision.
Dr. Annabel McGoldrick is an EMDR Consultant and IFS Practitioner, running her own advanced EMDR continuing education courses in IFS informed EMDR, from both the United Kingdom and her home in Sydney, Australia. She is a teacher with the EMDR Learning Community and has written other articles on the integration of EMDR and IFS that discuss how IFS-informed appraches can help EMDR trainees gain confidence, and the flexible and relational approach of IFS and EMDR.
References
Big Think. (2021, September). Is reality real? These neuroscientists don’t think so. YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZdfE_7cde0
Dernedde, C. (2023, November). EMDRIA mini-conference Nov 25. 2023 hears from Bosnia about parts work and more. EMDR UK. https://emdrassoceastanglia.org.uk/2023/11/27/emdrea-mini-conference-november-25-hears-from-bosnia-from-parts-and-more/
Dyson, N. (2024, Winter). Encouraging practising EMDR post-training. EMDR Therapy Quarterly. https://etq.emdrassociation.org.uk/2024/01/29/encouraging-practising-emdr-post-training/
Farrell, D., & Keenan, P. (2013). Participants’ experiences of EMDR training in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 7(1), 2-16. Open access: https://doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.7.1.2
IFS Institute. (n.d.). The Internal Family Systems Model Outline. https://ifs-institute.com/resources/articles/internal-family-systems-model-outline
McGoldrick, A. (2022, Summer). In reply to the Council of Scholars: How an IFS-informed approach to EMDR could help EMDR trainees on their journey to becoming fully-fledged EMDR psychotherapists. EMDR Therapy Quarterly. https://etq.emdrassociation.org.uk/2022/08/15/in-reply-to-the-council-of-scholars-how-an-ifs-informed-approach-to-emdr-could-help-emdr-trainees-on-their-journey-to-becoming-fully-fledged-emdr-psychotherapists/
McGoldrick, A. (2023, Winter). The flexible and relational approach of IFS enhances EMDR’s eight phases: A composite case study. EMDR Therapy Quarterly. https://etq.emdrassociation.org.uk/case-study/the-flexible-and-relational-approach-of-ifs-enhances-emdrs-eight-phases-a-composite-case-study/
Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the Internal Family Systems model. Boulder, CO: Sounds True
The Art and Science of EMDR. (2023, July). IFS-Informed EMDR with Annabel McGoldrick. YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NqNfy-mMZ0
Vincent, A. (2022, March). Guide for the IFS client: Chapter 2: The Self. Medium. https://medium.com/@annavincentz/guide-for-the-ifs-client-chapter-2-the-self-dfc0dbade7c6#:~:text=In%20the%20IFS%20view%20of,touch%20with%20our%20Self%2Denergy.
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